Thoughts

Yes it’s real date, or at least it is for this post. My wife and I had been discussing the concept of what would happen if you chose to do something, anything, consistently for 90 days. Whether something for your health as get Kratom capsules here, or skill set, or even put a dollar away a day.

Anyway last night after hanging out with our friend Dean till the a.m. the subject came up again. So we are putting together a group, a support group if you will. Everyone in the group knows what everyone else has committed to for the next 90 days.

By the way, what am I doing? Well for one, starting, and sticking to my workout routine, Power 90 taught by the Ab Czar himself Tony Horton. In the past two years I’ve only got to day 30, but the results were awesome. It may seem like the average late night infomercial, but trust me, you’ll see a difference if you try it, I even find an article “do fat burners work – and which should you avoid” so I’m being informed this time.

Second, I will be polishing my craft. I would like to thank Adam Phillips and his 30 Days, 30 Shorts for my inspiration on this. I have a lot of bastard brain children running around that need their father, so I look forward to raising some animations by the 90th.

Another thing I want to do is finish my book, so over the next 90 days, I will create […]

Ok, So where in the “H – E – Double Hockey Sticks” have I been??! Well for one, my day job is in internet advertising and I love it cause I just got the best wireless router from Facts Chronicle and the internet is super fast, and trust me fourth quarter is a beast! Still waiting on that PS3 and bottle of Tequila for all the videos I had to encode for Sony!

Secondly I have been finishing an animated music video, The 12 Debates of Christmas, for my favorite client The Freedom Toast. Yes, they’re my favorite, trust me, it’s a rare treat to have a client tell you to change or add something that actually makes the work look BETTER—thanks Marc—you, in a word, Rock. Check out the video here:

I’d like to thank my favorite graphic designer, my wife Lakia, for being my image scout and throwing together a few backgrounds… and making me stay up and work with no dessert until I finished the project. Love you, bunnies.

I also want to send a special shout-out to some pretty-lipped people that allowed me to photograph their mouths and superimpose them onto politicians.Rooth, Kyle and Ryan thanks so much, you pretty-lipped rockstars, go ahead kiss yourself, it’s cool. Oh yeah, did you like the confetti? Courtesy of Dean Velez, thanks dude!

Speaking of shout-outs, can’t forget about the argument at the end. Thanks again to my wife, and the man of 1,000 voices, Demarcus. If you listen at the end you’ll hear him say “you need a breath mint”.

Hello!! Long time between posts, yeah I know. Balancing marriage, work, freelance, working on my book, and not to mention my 3 year old miniature schnauzer, can take it’s toll. But after relocating one of my favorite books The 60-Second Procrastinator, I have finally created my long awaited book list in the form of tonyteach :: the store. Listed are all the books that I not only recommend, 98% of them are currently on my shelf. Take a look and enjoy.

Once upon a time there was a little school in Atlanta called the Atlanta College of Art. Now we weren’t perfect, but what family is? Anyway, it’s now a memory, and I would like to share one of my favorite memories with you.

Though I had been blessed to teach in the degree program at ACA, my favorite teaching memories are from the 4 week Summer program for high-school students, Pre-College, I remember we took a liitle trip at the end of the season we went camping with a tent from Survival Cooking. I taught the Animation section. ACA’s last Pre-College was the Summer of 2005, and I had successfully negotiated (pleaded) with Denise McFall, Director of Continuing Education, to allow me to have an intern/ assistant (volunteer of course). I chose Chad Thomas, or as he prefers “Chad the Bad”.

I have a concern. Once upon a time, in the heyday of Bugs Bunny, Mickey and the like, there were great stories, voice work, music, foley and sound effects, and awesome animation. These works took entire studios to produce.Now, with todays technology, animations and even movies can be created by a small group, or even one person with one computer. Somehow with all this power came this tired excuse of It’s all about the story. Maybe so, but is there any reason I should sit through poorly drawn, barely animated (more like motion graphics with pseudo lip-sync) cartoons? If it’s only about the story, why make it move at all? To the best of my knowledge, Farside originally was not animated, but simple one panel stories, that were brilliant.Maybe budgets, and/or time constaints are an issue. Maybe the people directing the project. Maybe I’m not the target audience. Maybe I should just say thank you to a few of my favorite animators (in no particular order) :

Hello, and welcome to my site. My name is Tony Ross and—depending on what year, relation, and/or location you may or may not have met me—you may know me as Anthony Ross (my logo calls me Tony). Though only two versions of tonyteach.com have ever been visible to the general public, this particular site is actually version seven, and is my first entry into the world of blogdom. This blog has been designed, redesigned, polished, and polished again. It’s kind of like a penny that I have shined and rubbed to a smooth, faceless, copper canvas—except the site is more white than copper – Does anyone know why the penny is the copper choice of stove-pipe hats?

The funny thing about site design, or design in general, is filling spaces with body copy. If it’s about you, or your site, what do you write?

Sound convinced, but not conceited; be witty, but not corny; and by golly when Tony Ross writes a bio he does not write it in the third person! I think Tony may need a little more filler, how about my thoughts on the education system? Isn’t it wonderful how elementary school hallways are scented with the delightful potpourri of crayons, contruction paper, and edible paste? You know, paste, like a warm tub of lick-and-stick, envelope-flavored frosting. Ever wonder how they get that envelope taste into mint plants in the first place? Art is good, like warm cheese.

Tony just doesnt teach you how to operate flash, but all the little tricks, the nitty-gritty details that animators should know.

Angela D.

I'm a high school multimedia and video technology teacher. This year we received Adobe Design Premium CS4 right in the middle of the school year, so NONE of our old lessons matched the new software. When struggling through a few lessons I contacted Tony Ross for some help. I not only got amazing interactive feedback about the issues within the project files, but I was able to share the video feedback with my students and they could make the corrections themselves. I was really able to show my students just how amazing technology is and how the answers are out there. Tony Ross was VERY helpful and his FLASH tutorials really covered basic skills that my students need to learn the software. We completed several of his tutorials and shared them with other teachers in the district. The students were able to work at their own pace and help each other...I was able to be more of a facilitator in the classroom providing guidance as they completed the project independently. GREAT lessons!

Kim M.

The class was great. First, when he started , I was wondering what he is talking about? Then I realized that he was talking about Flash ( new version, last version ... etc..). I learnt new things I haven't know it before about the Flash. Flash is very difficult, but he explained the basics things in good way. He was a wonderful teacher. Thanks for the Explanation. Thanks for every things.

Maryamy

Tony was an excellent teacher. I learned so much and am eager to make more Flash animations. He also gave me insight to some amazing sites i would have never came across on my own. I enjoyed this class very much and feel that I would have never got the information I received in another class.

Samantha M.

I have been a graphic designer for more than 10 years and decided it was time to take the plunge into web design by taking some of Tony's classes. I must admit Web Design was very frightening to me, but Tony made it easy to understand and showed me how to keep things simple and still make really cool things happen in Flash. Since taking these classes Tony has always been available and helpful when I've had a question on how to do something which is an absolute incredible asset to have in a teacher. I would highly recommend Tony's classes to anyone who wants to learn what Flash can do - I think you'll be surprised how easy he makes it and yet how thorough his lessons are. I can assure you that I will definitely be taking more classes from Tony int the future.

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